I think the last time I posted on here, it was a tournament report for winning an RCQ with knightfall a few years. Well, I'm back at it again, I suppose! I actually have been on a break from magic, but when I saw they printed Retreat to coralhelm on a stick I thought "if I don't bring this to a big paper event, then who else will?" Started brewing and exchanging ideas with others on the knightfall discord, and settled on a list after a lot of testing. My plan was to bring this finalized version to the Saturday 5k at Baltimore. Funny enough, a friend looked up my mtgtop8 results, and 10 years ago I was in Baltimore playing Knightfall at an SCG event, playing a lot of the same cards I still was 10 years later. I might be caught in a time loop or something.
I decided I was going to LCQ as much as I could on Friday as practice for the 5k, just in case I could sneak in (being on break, I didn't even try to qualify for this season). Sure enough, I 5-0'd the very first LCQ and I was in the RC. Kept the momentum going enough on Saturday to make day 2, but then kinda shit the bed on Sunday 😅. Dropped at 7-6 to "lock in" my positive record, still super happy to make day 2 at all, and overall record for the weekend was 12-6.
Here's the list https://mtgdecks.net/Modern/bant-decklist-by-james-schlott-3084022
Things I'd change:
-Mite over bauble, MB needles were more prevalent than I expected
-harpooner over lagrella, I kinda gaslit myself into thinking I needed less narrow GSZ-able removal
-I'm very 50/50 on it, but you could replace the saga and woodland for better mana producing lands. The mana base is super tight, and you have to mulligan a lot just because you have the wrong lands in hand. You'd also get to replace all the saga targets, and can probably replace mole man at that point. You do lose a lot of utility though.
I'm not really looking to do a deck tech, this post will be probably too long as it is, but the premise is that it's a creature combo deck with some interaction and toolbox effects, and a very strong backup fair plan. The core of the combo is knight of the reliquary and elven raft steerer (kind of a mouthful, I've been calling it raft guy/rafty/boat elf), you get all your lands in the graveyard and swing with a big knight, using various types of lands for extra power + evasion. With shangchi, you don't even need knight to not be summoning sick, since you can just kessig on something that can attack. And with artisan, the sky is the limit for what you can do. Technically, you can have nothing but artisan, two things to sac, and a fetchland in hand and win the game that turn with just that if you have enough mana (this type of combo I call the "long combo"). You can also extended it and chain cubs together to get a whole suite of creatures out to kessig wolfrun something for like 100~150 depending on what's left in your deck.
If you want to learn more about the archetype, I'd suggest joining our discord:
https://discord.gg/9QPAtUcvr
I also don't mind answering any questions in the comments. Just to get ahead of a lot of the "why not play X or Y" questions though- if it's an elf or elemental, it complicates the combo. Nissa is used as a 4th rafty that you can GSZ because rafty is the only elf/elemental in the deck; you can play your speakers and endurances if you want to, but then you have to reconsider playing Nissa.
ROUND BY ROUND REPORT:
LCQ, 5-0
Round 1; Mono U tron, 2-1 I honestly don't remember too much from this match, other than thinking that Teeg is *very* good for this MU.
Round 2; Domain Zoo, 2-0 Opponent was super cool, and a commander player trying modern for the first time. A bit of a wild introduction into 60-card if you ask me, but I'm glad I could show him some true boomer magic. The MU doesn't feel terrible, I'm not so sure if it's favored or not though. Either way, my opponent wasn't super familiar with the format, and made some subtle mistakes that I was able to take advantage of and get it 2-0.
Round 3; Broodscale, 2-1 Super unfortunate series of events for my opponent. They didn't realize the match started and showed up late enough to get a game loss for the match. Hate to see it, but it is what it is. They're on the play obviously, and I mull to a pretty mopey 6 card hand. All I do is play dorks and shanchi for two turns, and they get a turn 3 emrakul, and that was all she wrote for game 2. Game 3, I'm on the play with a very likely T3 win in hand, unless my opponent has a way to disrupt me. He goes turn 1 pithing needle… Naming devoted druid… I won that game… So not only did he get a game loss, but he also lost game 3 by being blindsided into wasting his pithing needle, cuz of my absolute jank pile. I felt pretty bad for the guy, I hope he had a good rest of his weekend… Oh, he won the whole RC?… I'm sure he's doing just fine then.
Round 4; Belcher, 2-0 I have a lot of good tools for this one. Main board T3feri was clutch game 1, and game 2 i got the lock with Teeg + safekeeper. In game 2, there was a moment where he could have responded to my T3feri in a certain way to have a better chance, but IMO it was not an obvious line to find.
Round 5; Titan, 2-1 This one had my heart going like crazy! Game 1, I don't recall having too much interaction, and I think I just got cultivator colossus combo'd pretty easily. Game 2, they "go off" but most they could do is get a titan and swing for non-lethal. On my turn, I'm able to start going off with the long combo. He makes me play it out, and tries to "get me" by boseiju-ing my yavimaya. I still had echoing deeps in the deck, so obviously not an issue. Though it got me thinking of how he could best try to interact using boseiju during the long combo. It's a long story to explain the tech but my best guess is targeting the kessig wolfrun (or woodland, if I went the cheat route). The cub trigger needs to resolve to make kessig a creature to cash in that shangchi mana, and in response to it they could boseiju. I never thought how I would try to play around boseiju in this context before. I think moving forward, what i can keep in mind is doing the combo with less mana production (if I don't need as much, or have enough lands) to save a cub in the deck. That way, if kessig gets blown up, I can still get echoing deeps, and then use another cub to pick up where I left off. Game 3, I'm on the Draw. Very nerve wracking to be otd against Titan, haha. My opening 7 was *fine* but my opponent snap kept 7 and I knew I had to mull for something better. My 6 is also kinda just fine BUT it has a force of Vigor. Considering I was already down a card, and my hand didn't look super fast, I *needed* my opponent to start with saga + amulet for this to be worth it. I figured I'd take that chance rather than chancing a 5 card hand. Sure enough, opponent goes T1 saga + amulet, and now we have a game. I go T1 dork, force his battlefield on his upkeep. Opponent has a very unimpressive Turn 2, I go T2 cub + shanchi. Opponent finds another amulet T3 but is missing a land drop to pop off and kill me. I go to my Turn 3. I'm looking at a coco and fetchland in my hand. If I rip coco right now I there are multiple combinations I could hit that win me the game on the spot, so I go for it. Unfortunately, all I find is Artisan, which IS a winning combination on the board but not enough mana left to start it off. So I pass to my opponent. He needs a land off the top to win or else I win. He starts praying, and I counter by praying harder in the reverse direction. No land off the top, passes the run, i reveal my hand and he concedes. Holy moly! I made it into the RC!
Day 1, 6-3
Round 1; Devoted Druid, 2-1
I think this round exemplifies how I feel about this match up. Without a good amount of testing data to back it up, I can't say for sure, but it think the MU *overall* is favored for knightfall. Game 1 is certainly unfavored, they are like half a turn faster than us and therefore usually win the race, especially if we lose the die roll. Granted, we do have mainboard interaction that can make them lose a step or two and let us get ahead, and sometimes *we* win the die roll and they don't have a turn 2 win to stop our turn 3 win. But neither of those were the case for game 1, and they won pretty quickly. Game 2 was pretty simple. Path a thing to stop myself from dying that turn, then combo you on the crack back. Game 3 was interesting, Teeg came to the rescue although that didn't stop me from realizing it also stops a hardcast leyline and I got a GRV letting my opponent cast one and not realizing till 2 turns later 😭 However, with Teeg and other interaction, I bought enough time to win the match regardless. And this is why I think it might be favored for us. Post board, we just have a much larger and better, suite of interaction. They may be half a turn faster, but we can usually afford to buy 2 turns while only taking 1 turn off, and now *we're* the ones half a turn faster. Not to mention that game 1 is still very winnable. My opponent seemed to agree, but it could also just be an anecdotal case of "you just beat me, feels like you're favored".
Round 2; Broodscale, 2-1
Game 1 opponent keeps a risky hand that has T1 pithing needle, and they name KotR (it's open decklist). I did indeed have a T2 Knight, but I also had 3 fetchlands and a mole man in my opener. Opponent eventually puts out 2 myco-thing 3/3's but with a noble I'm able to just keep smashing face with knight until they're forced to block and open the flood gates for my army of moloids. Memory is fuzzy on the other two games, but I think it went something like G2 I mull to a mid hand and get T3'd, and then G3 I T3 them back.
Round 3; Jeskai Blink, 1-2 This might be the most memorable match of the entire tournament. I perceive this as a terrible MU, and G1 really doesn't make me doubt that. G2 I'm able to squeak out with a very well timed aang after moleman-ing a bit, into immediately flipping it and going in for an omega swing. G3, I take a risk and over commit into a sweeper. Seems hopeless, but I draw a GSZ and cast it for x=4 and it resolves. It's thrun time baby. I smack my opponent for a few turns, while my opponent mostly goes draw-go each turn. It really seems like Thrun is going to get there. Opponent is trying to clock me with a casey jones, but I'm winning the race. On the last critical turn, they swing me down to 6 life and then pass with no blockers and at 5 life. I got 6 lands, one of which is a woodland (3 card types in grave) and one of which is a fetch. EoT I crack the fetch. My choices are to get dryad arbor and try to go for the win, or get a surveil land and maybe try to turn on delirium or find an interactive spell (I guess I could have also gone for stomping ground incase i top decked kessig?) I decide just to surveil, and my opponent consigns the surveil. I top deck a creature, swing my opponent down to 1 and run out my creature. My opponent top decks phelia, casts it with arena to give it haste, flickers my blocker and kills me. Reveals his hand after the match, it was all counter magic and lands. The dryad arbor option would have got there! 😭 But either way, I was super impressed how well thrun performed. They had one turn where they used a wrath of the skies just to get my noble off the field so thrun only swung for 4. Feels good when that's what your opponent is using their turn for, haha.
Round 4; Affinity, 2-1 This is where the SB cards really shined. Ouphe + safekeeper + airtemple to get everything out of whipflare range was quite the lock in one of these games. I didn't even get to show off the combo
Round 5; Devoted Druid, 0-2 Game 2 was pretty close. At first, it didn't seem like I could lose. Opponent has T0 leyline, I go T1 dork, they go T1 dryad arbor, and I go T2 Aang your dryad arbor. That's a HUGE start! but they were able to claw back some mana dorks before I could piece together a wincon. It got to the point where I had him locked down with Teeg and had the set up to win the game next turn. However, getting the set up required me to tap everything except for Teeg. He plays a surviel land, finding a creature he needed to bin to give druid a +1/+1 with cauldron. That gives him just enough mana to start an infinite counters loop with tyvar and swings with a giant druid. I'm forced to block with teeg, which lets him rhythm to finish off the game.
Round 6; Dimir Frogtide, 2-0 Aang and Coco were G1 MVPs. Thrun was very nice to have post board, even though I didn't need it. They do have plenty of answers for it though, in the form of edicts and damnation.
Round 7; Trudge, 2-0 Excellent match up, lots of MB hedges and plenty of SB cards to bring in
Round 8; Trudge, 1-2 What did I just say about this match up again? Lol! This is kind of where I started losing my mental endurance, was not eating or drinking the entire time, and I think I played this match the worse out of all of them. All 3 hands should have been a mulligan, and I didn't even play the cards I kept the right way.
Round 9; Esper Blink, 2-0 I got the sense that my opponent was also pretty burnt. I accidentally tapped a fetchland for mana, and got my second GRV. We were able to rewind this one though at least. Sylvan safekeeper definitely keep my entire board held together in game 2. Won my win and in for day 2, and knightfall officially has a 100% conversion rate.
Day 2, 1-3 This is where it all finally came crumbling apart for me.
Round 10; UW grinding station, 2-0 G1 my opponent actually has the win on board, but can't remember if I mainboard bog or not, and I have a knight activation open. So they take a more complicated line to play around it, but make a mistake in doing so, and accidentally kill their own loop. Unfortunately for them I combo off on my turn. Game 2, SB cards were very strong. Possibly the coolest opponent I had all weekend personality wise.
Round 11; Goryo's, 0-2 All loses from here on out. And to start the spiral, it's one of the match ups I've been trying to avoid all weekend. I tried really hard to play around solitude + ephemerate, and it KINDA worked, but then they just kept drawing more and more solitudes and ephemerates, so instead of losing G1 quick and easy, it was slow and painful. G2 didnt get much better.
Round 12; Trudge, 1-2 I still think this is a very favored match up, but I kept screwing myself by not being brave enough with my mulligans I think.
Round 13; affinity, 1-2 This is where I finally died. Opponent kept a 4 card hand G1 and was REALLY getting a lot done tbh, but not enough to win. G2 I almost got there, just needed to untap and I had the win, but my life total got sniped by a galvanic blast and turtle beat before I could. G3 I keep kind of a mid hand that just could not keep up with T1 turtle from my opponent. It was a fun match nonetheless, and I promptly dropped to lock in my positive record.
Source: r/ModernMagic · by /u/Kingcosmo7